


Listen: There's a Hell of a Good Universe Next Door

by Jayne L (JayneL)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Croatoan/Endverse, Episode: s05e04 The End, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-30 19:23:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3948685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayneL/pseuds/Jayne%20L
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Cas? You there?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Listen: There's a Hell of a Good Universe Next Door

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'pity this busy monster, manunkind' by e.e. cummings. 'Wish You Were Here' by Pink Floyd.
> 
> Warnings for 'The End'-verse, and all that entails.

_"Cas? You there?"_

They were lucky: the truck stalled out on the return leg of their foraging run. Dean had had to tow it in from the service road a couple miles from Chitaqua. That'd been hard enough on the rusty, groaning junkbucket that was the Singer Salvage rig; if the truck had died any farther out, they would've had to scrap it. Hope nobody came along and liked the look of their inventory while they had their asses out on the open road, shifting their scavenged loot into other trucks.

Now, in addition to all the other shit on his plate--both apocalyptic and everyday, Righteous Man turned camp fucking counsellor--Dean has to figure out if the problem's a bad batch of fuel, or the truck's carburetor. Fuck everything either way: almost every vehicle in the camp's been filled from the two tanks they emptied a few days ago at some farm littered with croat-kill, so if the gas was bad, Dean's day's gonna get a hell of a lot worse; and if the carburetor's past fixing, he's gonna kick his own ass for wasting time on the tow, fuck the cargo. It's not like the cement-floored pavilion they've repurposed as the camp's garage has a friggin' parts department.

Dean's propping open the truck's hood when Cas wanders up, shakes rain out of his hair, leans against the closest of the pavilion's splintering wooden support beams, and eyes him expectantly. When Dean just eyes him back, the corner of Cas's mouth tweaks upwards. "You wanted me?" he says, pointedly.

Dean keeps staring. Gestures sharply at the truck's guts and demands, "You a mechanic now?"

The half-smile grows; then, as Cas registers the hardness in Dean's eyes, the tick of his jaw, it falters. "You were looking for me," he says, like he's recapping something he thinks Dean already knows. "I heard--you needed me."

"Yeah?" Dean is in no goddamn mood. If he has to deal with this kind of shit from Cas, he prefers that Cas be high: at least then he knows the crazy's pharmaceutical, and temporary. But Cas's eyes, squinting now in confusion, aren't bloodshot, and he doesn't smell like anything but the rain. "Why? You got your angel fingers back? Gonna give this crapped-out carburetor the magic healing touch?" Done with whatever the hell Cas thinks this is, Dean turns his back and hunches under the hood, muttering, "Can't think of anything else I'd need you for."

* * *

_"--fucking chompers out of fucking nowhere, Jesus, Cas, these dicks never quit--shit, don't let it--goddammit godDAMMIT--you'd better be okay, Cas, you'd better fucking not be fucking dead, man, I swear to--fuck, get its head get its HEAD--"_

They're in a hotzone following a lead on the Colt, Dean and Risa easing silently down an alley coated in garbage and grime and old blood, when the tense quiet is broken by the _thud-thud-thud_ of heavy boots pounding the pavement towards them. They both nearly take Cas's head off--literally--when he pelts around the corner into their gunsights.

"What the _fuck_ , Cas?" Dean hisses, his finger spasming off the trigger. The Colt's a need-to-know item; they're only a four-person team on this trip. Cas is supposed to be guarding the gap they'd made in the quarantine fence, was supposed to duck back through and rendezvous with Kalika at the Jeep if there was trouble.

Cas looks thrown. "I heard--" He frowns. "I thought you were under attack."

"All the noise you just made, we're gonna be," Risa spits over her shoulder, moving to the end of the alley to peer around the corner back the way Cas came.

Forcing his exasperation into check--they're in the field, after all; Cas is as sober as he ever gets anymore--Dean leans in and lowers his voice. "This a Spidey-sense thing? You got some mojo left you didn't tell me about?"

Something raw flashes in Cas's eyes: disbelief, maybe. Hurt. Dean watches him bluntly, on-edge and impatient. "I don't know," he mutters finally. "I don't think so. I just--" He glances away, pressing his lips into a tight line. When he looks up again, he's shuttered off. He shrugs. "I thought you were fighting for your life."

* * *

_"Gotta tell you, Cas, I miss Sam, but I am glad as hell he's not here. Some of the shit this place throws down, I wouldn't wish on anybody. Well, maybe one or two people. But not Sammy._

_...Not you, either."_

They found survivors during the last salvage run. Brought them back to the camp after all the usual tests and checks, because they were weak and shellshocked and young, a couple of them actual kids, and Yeager has that soft spot he tries to pretend he doesn't.

Dean had looked them over when they arrived and bit his tongue so hard it bled, waiting for Jane to lead them off to the cabins before cursing Yeager out. Another seven refugees with nowhere else to go, except it's the fucking _Apocalypse_ : there's nowhere any of them _can_ go, not that'll make a damn bit of difference in the end.

Another seven mouths to feed, and Chitaqua's stores are already down to bare staples.

The mess hall's always too crowded for Dean--these days, he usually collects his rationed share and takes it back to his cabin to eat--but tonight it feels like a holding pen at a goddamn factory farm. People mill like cattle through the serving line, pack themselves around the tables like they're afraid that if they have too much room to move, they'll spoil their marbling. They part for Dean, mostly, if they see him coming or are pulled out of his way by someone who does. The civilians don't tend to look at him much, but tonight the hunters are keeping their gazes indirect, too. At least a few of them heard him chewing out Yeager, and news travels fast.

Yeager himself is a few places ahead in line, with the two new kids trailing along beside him. Dean's eye catches on the youngest kid's face as Yeager hands him his plate: narrow cheeks flushed, tongue darting out over his lips, wide eyes shining with excitement under the messy mop of his hair. Like he's getting Christmas dinner with all the fixings in his single scoops of canned beans, rehydrated mashed potatoes, and applesauce.

And then, Dean watches the kid's big sister get handed the last slice of margarine-scraped bread. Not the last one ever; things may be getting tight, but they're not starving yet. Where Dean stands, he can see into the kitchen on the other side of the serving tables, can see a fresh platter of bread sitting ready to go on the counter. But he watches the kid look from the bread in her hand to the empty serving tray in front of her and he knows--he _knows_ , goddammit--that all she can see is her little brother's breadless plate. Sure enough, when Yeager moves obliviously on to collect cups of water from the cooler, she turns and hands her slice of bread to her brother.

Who beams at her like she just put the sun in his sky.

Dean looks away from the kids. He focuses on moving down the line, spooning up his own shitty dinner despite his appetite having turned into a weight like cold lead in his gut.

When his plate's full, he turns to survey the room-- see if there's any point in staying to eat, any space that's not occupied, anyone around whose company he can tolerate--and is pulled up short: halfway across the room, Cas is staring at him like he's never seen him before. He's at a table full of his harem, sitting bolt upright on the bench like something's spooked him, his forkful of food frozen halfway to his mouth.

Unease threads down Dean's spine. Drawing himself up, he tilts his head, furrows his brow-- _something wrong?_ \--and a second later Cas blinks, shakes his head a little like he's clearing fog. Blinks again. Dean's about to head over when the woman next to Cas gives his arm a playful nudge, spilling the food off his fork--and it's that easy. All at once Cas is back to his pleasant, self-serving self, turning to smile and laugh and let the woman feed him off her own plate.

Dean puts his head down and pushes his way to the door, his appetite fucking _gone_.

* * *

_"You got your ears on, Cas? Honest question, man--I got no idea if you can even hear me. Some of the stuff I've been saying, maybe I should hope you can't, but. I dunno. It's kinda nice, thinkin' you're listening."_

He's at the wheel of the Impala, swaying gently through a quiet, drizzling night. The road stretches out straight and empty ahead. The car's headlights cut through slight wisps of fog, give the damp pavement an oily gleam. The radio's on low, the signal clear: Dean recognises the opening riff of 'Wish You Were Here', pensive and pretty.

Sam sits beside him, dressed all in white. "Your dreams are always so small," he muses, looking thoughtfully at the black view out the window, the car's interior, the glowing radio dial. At Dean, finally, confidingly. "Although to be honest, at this point, I'm surprised they're not even smaller."

Dean stares at the road, hands tight on the wheel. "Get out of my head."

In his periphery, Sam's eyes go round and soft; his forehead creases. A mask of compassion, so familiar on the mask of Sam's face. "I'm not just here for you, Dean. Sam misses you, too."

"Sam's dead."

Sam's mouth smiles, small and serene. "Sam misses you, too," he repeats.

The fog thickens. Deepens. Shrouds the night and the road and the car in smoky grey. Wraps like cotton around the rumbling hum of the engine, the song from the radio. Mutes them. Makes the whole world dead and still.

All that's left is Dean and Lucifer, sitting together inside the Impala's junked-out, picked-over carcass.

Lucifer slides him a sideways glance, his smile like a cut. "Like the song says--"

Dean slams awake. Stays flat on his back, hands clenched in his blanket, until he's sure he won't puke.

He needs a drink. He needs the Colt. He needs to put a bullet between his brother's eyes and have one left in the chamber for himself--

He needs air. He sleeps in his jeans and boots, doesn't need to waste time shoving them on, but grabs his jacket to pull on over his t-shirt on his way to the door.

The yard is 2am-quiet as he crosses--going nowhere, nowhere to _go_ \--and his boots crunch loudly on the gravel. Not quite loud enough to cover the subtle shift of Cas's bead curtain: when he looks, Cas is stepping out of his pitch dark cabin, up to the porch railing. Looking right at him.

Part of Dean seizes with disgust. He must've been yelling in his sleep. Shit, he probably woke up half the camp--but sharp, sideways glances at the other nearby cabins don't find any more of an audience. No one watching him from the shadows, no one peering their pity and fear through their windows. There's no one else to see him. Just Cas.

Cas is barefoot and bare-chested; the waist of his thin drawstring pants droops under the points of his hipbones. Even at a distance, he stinks of sour weed, churchy incense, and day-old whiskey sweat. His face is barely lit by what little of the floodlight reaches into the gloom under the porch roof, but something in the shape of it says, clearly, _Please._

Dean sets his jaw and looks straight ahead and walks on by.

* * *

_"All the shit you've done, Cas, all the--all that messed up shit--you know none of it matters anymore, right? You know I don't--I mean, it's not that I don't care. I just--look, Cas, I need you more than I care about any of it. None of that crap has to get in the way, we can just--go home and just--dammit. Just. Be okay, man. I need you to be okay, all right?"_

Dean comes back from the shed exhausted. His nose and mouth are thick with the stench of blood and burnt flesh; his teeth ache, and the bones of his fingers. His head pounds like his thoughts want out.

Every trick he'd used to hit that demonic motherfucker where it hurt, and the son of a bitch had just spit its meatsuit's blood and laughed.

Dean sits down heavily on the straight-backed wooden chair where he laces his boots. Makes his stiff fingers start working open the straps of his thigh holster.

He ignores the soft shuffle of feet up his porch stairs. Either Cas'll knock and Dean won't answer and he'll go away, or--

Cas opens the door without knocking, slips inside, and closes it again behind himself. Crosses the room without saying anything and puts an unopened fifth of scotch on the table. Turns and gives Dean that strange, expectant look Dean's been getting from him a lot lately.

Dean's fucked if he can figure out what exactly Cas thinks he can expect of him these days. He finds it easier to deal with the other look Cas reserves for him, the one that's all resignation. "Not now, Cas."

Cas doesn't move. "We don't have to talk," he says mildly. "In fact, given the day I assume you had, I'd prefer we didn't." He nods to the scotch, wry. "It can't be described as the best bottle in my collection, but it's certainly not the worst. And it's the one I brought, so--"

"I said not now!"

He can feel Cas watching him as the silence grows taut. Weighing him. Deciding whether he's worth losing an entire bottle of scotch to, maybe. Dean could use the scotch--Dean _wants_ the scotch, is probably gonna need the whole damn fifth to cushion the fucking hammer in his head enough to let him get some sleep--but if he has to lose it in order for Cas to leave him the hell alone, he will absolutely pay that price.

When Cas speaks again, his tone has cooled. "If you could go home, Dean, where would that be?"

What the fuck.

It's from so far out of left field, such a goddamn non sequitur, Dean can't even process it. Can't even try. The tight, worn core of his exhaustion breaks under the friggin' _absurdity_ of it, and Dean recognises the calm that comes unfurling through the crack. The kind of calm that drops into him sometimes when he's halfway through a day at the shed.

He stands and stalks to the table, right up next to Cas. His abruptness makes Cas flinch. Somewhere in the calm, part of him likes it. "I am home," he says, picking up the scotch and twisting off the cap with his aching fingers. "So are you. Get used to it."

* * *

_Words tend to come in fragmentary pieces of sentences, fuzzy and indistinct, a weak signal fading in and out on a distant radio. More often, it's a feeling that washes through him, flow to ebb to desert. Homesickness. Frustration. Anger. Fear, regret, anxiety, yearning, determination, anticipation, hope--*hope*--all of them, every one, aimed squarely at Cas, Cas, Cas._

Cas comes with a low cry, his spine curving as he presses down into the sweaty cut of Dean's hip. He palms Dean's cheek when he's done, kisses him clumsily--his mouth is slack, and Dean can still taste himself in it--then rolls onto his back and stretches, long and lean and languorous.

Dean keeps Cas's sine-wave body in his periphery as he wipes up the mess on his stomach with a fold of the bedsheet. When Cas goes limp again, show over, he sits up and snags his jeans off the end of the bed.

Cas picks up the half-smoked joint he'd pinched off and placed reverently on the bedside table earlier, when his focus had shifted from getting high to getting off. While he roots around for his lighter, he asks, like it just occurred to him, "When was the last time you prayed, Dean?"

"Uh." Dean stops, bemused, with his jeans only halfway up his thighs. "Never?"

Cas lays back and beams up at him, bright and easy and sex-and-dope-stupid. "You should start. I think you'd be good at it."

Irritation burrs into Dean's vaguely pleasant post-fuck mood. Cas and his deep, stoned thoughts. "Yeah, well, I think there's no point. Who the fuck is there to pray to?"

Cas's long fingers twitch as he puts his joint between his lips. They're steady as he lights up. His eyes slip shut as he takes a deep drag; he works his bony shoulders down into the pillows, works his throat around a thick swallow as he holds in the smoke. Finally, on his slow, pluming exhale, he agrees, "No one at all."

* * *

_"*Cas.*"_

Cas staggers.

A few minutes ago, he felt Dean from the past blink out of the timeline; not long before that, he felt this universe's Dean become an empty corpse. Now, he feels a fierce rush of _relief-triumph-joy-excitement-lovelovelove_. It floods him, fills him, pours into his recent hollows. He makes a raw, wordless noise.

It's been seconds since he last fired at the pack of croats teeming out of the stairwell: they've swarmed forward, are almost on him.

Drowning gratefully in the high tide of some distant Dean's prayer, Cas angles his gun into the soft place under his chin and pulls the trigger.

**Author's Note:**

> (Linear time doesn't work properly in SPN. If it did, Dean and Cas would've been in Purgatory in 2014.)


End file.
